Hi Derek,

My name's Michael Sparks - I'm the project lead of the Kamaelia project and the author of the presentation you're referencing. I'm not about to debate the way the BBC operates with regard to Akamai and iPlayer. As someone who uses linux as his only operating system and have been doing so for, what, 13 years or so, I would agree that the BBC could do better. Me saying beyond that would probably venture into realms that an engineer is probably best not getting into.

My reason for replying here is to correct a factual mistake - the Kamaelia project did not die in 2006. Whilst day to day work on the project itself as a standalone project ceased in 2007, the project continues to go on, with the last release just a few days ago. The website migrated off sourceforge in 2006 due to problems with sourceforge's hosting at the time, and can be found at http://www.kamaelia.org/Home.html , and the codebase migrated to http://code.google.com/p/kamaelia/ . In summer of this year, the license changed to the Apache 2 license - primarily to be in line with other python based projects.

There's generally a release every 2 months or so at the moment, and I try to have a release around christmas, largely because it seems a nice thing to do. What is currently happening with Kamaelia is that it is being used by a (small) handful of projects, and what we've learnt from building it shared with the wider community. A colleague for example recently gave a talk about a multicamera studio capture system which is in part kamaelia based at CVMP http://www.cvmp-conference.org/ , whilst another colleague is working on a twitter analysis system for identifying the parts of programmes the audience respond to : http://code.google.com/p/kamaelia/source/browse/trunk/Sketches/AB/Bookmarks/ - which can be useful to the non-tweeting public for identifying interesting events, and also to programme makers for improving programmes. (that code is obviously open source)

If I had a wider point, it'd be this - the BBC doesn't have (as far as I'm aware, though I do tend to ask around) any particular policy for or against open source. The presentation linked to from that 101 isn't IMO as good as a presentation I did the next year which is here: http://www.slideshare.net/kamaelian/open-source-at-the-bbc-when-why-why-not-how . The reason I say that is because there's an after the fact transcript of that talk available here: http://yeoldeclue.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.cgi?rm=viewpost&nodeid=1162045468

The downside from a *free software* perspective is that this can lead to incompatible choices with free sofware. Most often - as far as I can see - though the decision is based on a "least worst" principle, with the aim of being as accessible by as many people as possible. Hence using flash rather than real (increases takeup due to being inbrowser), and before that using real rather than windows media.  (increased takeup since for all it's flaws, real was multi-platform rather than windows based)

Is it perfect? No. Could the BBC do better? Yes. Are there people here trying to make things better ? Yes. One way of doing that is the slow slow process of persuasion and demonstration. Those talks I've given I've tried hard to be balanced, not paint the BBC as better than it is, nor worse than it is. I've tried to non-dogmatically talk about the benefits of open source, and through Kamaelia demonstrate the benefits of working that way.

It's a slow process, but people do listen.

When it comes to programme content though, it's worth bearing in mind that the BBC is limited by rights. Due to the way copyright law works, in contract work unless you ask for specific rights, you simply do not have them. (The BBC owns everything I do at work because I'm a full time employee, but for - say - a conductor brought in on a saturday night 10 years ago as a one off, that doesn't hold, he says picking something random) A description of the rights for a single programme can easily run to well over 80 A4 sheets when printed, and for example can include lines like "Please contact the agent for X on number Y for other uses".

And the way things work with copyright is if you don't ask for a right , you don't have it.

As a result, my understanding of the apparently proprietary approach of the BBC with regard to akamai and iPlayer has less to do with technology and more to do with copyrights, and in particular confidence. Given up to 50% of BBC programmes (for example Sherlock being a notable example, but also many others)  are made by external companies, if the people who make the programmes don't believe that they can make their money back on production costs from the BBC, repeat fees, and crucially (from their view) DVD sales, then they will do one thing - increase the amount programmes are sold to the BBC for (or sell them elsewhere).

I'm not going to judge whether that's a good or a bad thing, but it does mean this - the BBC is duty bound to respect the law of copyright - both with regard to the people who make it's programmes, and the technology it uses. If you'd be abhorred (as I would) by the idea of the BBC ignoring the licenses of open source software, then you have to be (IMO) equally abhorred by the idea of the BBC ignoring the rights of those who create the programmes.

I suppose the way to view it is this - it's not the BBC that is trying to stop you doing this, it's the BBC trying to plug holes from being seen as enabling it. I suspect somewhere contracts exist that say "the BBC will make Best or Reasonable efforts to ensure it's online services are streamed or only available in time restricted downloads".

In an ideal world it'd be simpler. We're not there yet. Maybe we will be someday.

Finally, I just want to iterate that this is NOT an official BBC response in any shape or form. It's just the response of an engineer who noticed a factual mistake about a project's alleged demise, and decided to speak hypothetically on some other issues in a hopefully useful but not-authoritative way.

In the meantime I try to do my bit, and I understand and sympathise with the anger completely.

I was under the impression that the BBC had, as part of its new Charter, a duty to develop and promote open-source software.

See the article in "Linux Format" magazine from May 2008, Here

though, as I don't work there, I can't claim that it is as presented.